Often held up as a model tax organisation for developing countries under the leadership of Pravin Gordhan in 1999-2009 it is now the latest body to be caught in the multiple controversies swirling around President Jacob Zuma and the governing African National Congress (ANC)...

Some have cast the battle as for or against President Jacob Zuma with the ANC loyalist group led by Cosatu President Sidumo Dlamini and supported by the remaining Cosatu affiliates including the National Union of Mineworkers SA Democratic Teachers Union and National Education Health and Allied Workers' Union...

During a televised sitting of the House in August Malema and his EFF MPs repeatedly called on President Jacob Zuma to 'pay back the money' spent on renovating his private residence in KwaZulu-Natal and which has set the aggravated public back more than US$23 million (AC Vol 55 No 17 Crunch time for the unions)...

Five months after the May general elections that returned President Jacob Zuma and the African National Congress to office the provincial conference of the Gauteng ANC which opened on 3 October designated Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa heir apparent...